


Sea-Change

by Carmarthen



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: Break Up, F/F, Gods, Podfic Available, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 01:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I miss the salt air in my lungs," Anamaria tells the goddess, twined with her in the rippling light of the grotto, silver fishes fluttering ticklish past her calves and flitting through the coiling ropes of the goddess's hair. "I miss the sky, I miss the colors, I miss the deck below my feet, I miss the snow on La Soufrière."</p><p>(Moral: Don't Date Gods.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sea-Change

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gelishan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gelishan/gifts).



> For Lishan, who asked for something based on the S.J. Tucker song "[Neptune](http://music.sjtucker.com/track/neptune)," about making the hard decision to get out of a bad situation. My brain is very literal.

At first it is all beautiful, the secret depths of the ocean, the octopuses and fishes that rise at night glowing blue and orange in their graceful transparent limbs, the strange things around the warm deep vents that Anamaria does not know whether to name plant or animal, the sleek passage of a shark through the water with the safe thrill of knowing that it would not harm her, not with the goddess at her side.

And the goddess is beautiful, too, her round breasts, her blue-stained smile, her clever hands. She whispers sweetness to Anamaria, promises her a kingdom of the sea for her own, promises her gold and pearls and sea-stained silks. She drowns Anamaria in her love, in the mystery of her body and her secret smiles, and so Anamaria goes down, down past the light, and does not think of what she leaves behind, only of the goddess's hand in hers and all the wonders spread before her.

* * *

"I miss the salt air in my lungs," Anamaria tells the goddess, twined with her in the rippling light of the grotto, silver fishes fluttering ticklish past her calves and flitting through the coiling ropes of the goddess's hair. "I miss the sky, I miss the colors, I miss the deck below my feet, I miss the snow on La Soufrière."

All here below the waves is cool and blue, muted except for the brilliant flash of reef fish darting in and out of coral alcoves. The goddess kisses Anamaria's shoulders, drapes the smooth brown curve of her neck with ropes of pearls. "But why?" she says, with only honest curiosity in her voice as she clasps shipwreck-gold around Anamaria's wrists, adoring and confining. "Why would you be missing all them things when you have my realm?"

Her kisses are like the opium Anamaria had smoked once in Singapore, in another life. They steal thought and hope, even as they warm her body through, but for the cold deep in her bones that never leaves.

* * *

Anamaria waits, wreathed in seaweed, covered in all the spoils of a thousand shipwrecks, all the riches of the deep. She waits for her lover, and lives only in the goddess's arms. She waits, and she fades, the fishes swimming closer, brushing slick and silver against her skin, until she expects one day to raise a hand and see some little fish wriggle through it, as though she is no more substantial than sea-foam. Once she had been fierce with life, her voice gull-harsh with command, her feet never more solid than on the rocking deck of a ship.

The day she leaves she begins swimming, up from the gloom, past the dark hulking forms of shipwrecks and moldering skeletons of great beasts, past the dead bases of coral reefs, past whales and sea lions and sharks, up to where the light begins to filter down through the murk.

Though the depths are not dead, up here the reefs teem with life, orange and white fish peeking out from the arms of anemones, wrasse darting magenta and blue and yellow through the living coral, colors Anamaria's eyes can scarcely remember. The water is sun-warmed around her, clear and gentle.

She knows when the goddess notices her absence, knows by the stinging and blurring in her eyes, the sudden pressure in her chest, the certain knowledge that if she inhales the water will choke her. She holds her breath and kicks harder, cutting the waves with all her strength, pulling up towards light and air and freedom. She swims until her lungs burn and she grows dizzy with longing, and finally, finally, she breaks free from the waves and tastes the sweet air.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Sea-Change](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4521546) by [croissantkatie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/croissantkatie/pseuds/croissantkatie)




End file.
